The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) has ordered Air Transat to explain why passengers were driven to call 911 for help as they sat in packed aircraft for up to six hours on a hot afternoon and evening in Ottawa. (www.avweb.com) Plus d'info...

These guys have pulled some lucky stunts...like the time they failed to detect a leak to keep the aircraft fuel load balanced. Air TransAt was lucky giving their paying passengers a free glider ride across the Atlantic to make a landing in the Azores. Avoid these clowns at all costs. One day these people won't be so lucky. One day I hope never comes, these guys are just an accident waiting to happen.

Yes but if the area for the outer seats allocation isnt designed for a triple seat, it cant be put in..Boeing not only builds the craft but engineers them...yes customers spec out the seats but only to a certain point..if the outer isle seat allocation allowance is only 52 inches total, you can't go jamming 80" in there...there are minimum seat width requirements as well...Boeing is planning for airlines to want to put in triple seats on the outside so the craft has been engineered to allow it..and no, you cant just go throwing in seats all wily nily.

Passengers would likely have gotten quicker results had they begun calling the local TV stations and newspapers. Imagine how quickly the airline would have responded with hordes of camera crews and photographers capturing the scene for all to see.

Cases like this prompted in US adoption of tighter rules for internal flights."Three hours. Under a new federal law that went into effect April 29, 2010, that is the longest you will ever spend stranded on a plane without food, water or the ability simply to get off the plane.The morning I am writing this, the Department of Transportation put into effect what many travelers and industry folks call an airline passenger rights bill. Among several other new rules, airlines must now provide snacks and “potable” (drinkable) water, as well as a clean lavatory, to passengers who are stranded for more than two hours; passengers stranded for more than three hours must be offered an opportunity to get off the plane. Failure to comply will result in monetary compensation to the affected travelers as well as stiff fines due the government."https://www.smartertravel.com/2017/06/19/airline-passengers-get-new-bill-rights/

If we assume that Transat does not have a ground handling contract in Ottawa then they would be obligated to pay an hourly rate for an Air Conditioning truck and have potable water boarded through another airline. My guess is that they simply didn't want to pay the extra cost.

No water, no fuel, no AC will eventually end in no passengers. Wake up management. It is time you put yourself in your customers' position and ignored the bottom line in these types of instances. It will pay off in the long run. Or are you the type who can only see to the end of the day?

Something similar on the opposite side of the Atlantic:https://flightaware.com/squawks/view/1/24_hours/new/62058/Armed_police_called_after_angry_passengers_go_crazy_over_delayed_BA_flight_from_Heathrow

Most seem to forget all international flights require Immigration & Custom service before passengers are allowed to deplane. During the 9/11 event passengers waited 3-4hrs before deplaning. I believe servicing a situation like this would be in effect be the so called de-sterilizing of the plane as required by Customs & Immigration.

What Air Transat did was inhumane no doubt about it, most because of costs.

Air Transat is blaming Ottawa airport for their latest fiasco, and yet it is amazing how other airlines were able to get their craft refuelled...if you don't ask, they shall not come.Sorry Scare Transat, but I'm more apt to believe Ottawa airport's side of the story than yours...1 craft and I might have leaned your way, but both the Rome and Brussels flights?..I'm leaning more to the Ottawa airport side of the issue that indeed the airport authority had been in contact with Transat's local ground handler crew and had items ready for passengers to depart/aircraft refuelled..the inquiry should be rather interesting especially with many former customers comments (hey Air Transat, can you say Azore's glider)

I'm thinking that we should have heard of 911 calls from passengers trapped on the tarmac before this. Maybe it happened, but the genie is out of the bottle. Airlines should be ready for more passengers dialing that number for help.

I am all for getting the folks off but how do you round them up again? I think at Ottawa there are 15 or so gate positions and very little ramp parking and probably no airstairs so the only thing is to keep them on board. Fuel however should have been loaded to keep the apu running or an air conditioning cart used if available. This is where CYMX would have been better but again probably not enough security personnel. Where is the Westjet guy to order "pizza" when you need him?

7 hours from Brussels and then sit another 6 in that hot stuffed smelly cabin when the A/C quit?...Air Transat has made blunders before and this is another...maybe this will make Transport Canada and the CTA open their eyes and make long overdue rules instead of "voluntary" rules

Probably the same way it happens to most when airline SNI's err CEO's are around..The nose gear would have done a partial retraction and then locked back into place...an aircraft "bow"....then fuel, food and water would have shown, all this happening as soon as they parked on the ramp.

North American commercial aviation is in shambles, no matter if Canadian or USA. The carriers there are a disgrace to the community and respect for the passengers is nil. That's what you get from ultra Liberal, leftist governments which encourage people to disobey the laws. a Total meltdown of society.

And I would suggest that it is a combination of the two. You have the self-centered left encouraging disobedience of laws that you don't like, and you have the libertarian-centric right that wants less governmental controls. This does not make for a viable, civilized society. Society needs reasonable regulation and protection of the individual and their liberties, but also their health & welfare. The key is that word "reasonable", and the impossibility of ever getting everyone in a society to agree on what actually is reasonable.

Don't phrase all NA carriers into your comment...many carriers worldwide are just as bad if not worse....and as Wolfgang pointed out, you cant be breaking the law if there is no law to break...also why I mentioned earlier that Transport Canada and the CTA best get their asses in gear and adopt rules similar to other countries.

Transport Canada has to follow the rules of ICAO just like the FAA, but if you read what I said, there are other rules they can adopt similar to US and other countries, so Im not wrong...if their asses were in gear, incidents such as the Ottawa Air Transat flights wouldn't have occurred.